svp - report of the commission - older people executive summary

8/3/2019 SVP - Report of the Commission - Older People Executive Summary

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The Principal Findings of theCommission are found under thefollowing themes:

- Experiences and Feelings About Aging

- Social Connection

- Income Adequacy and Fuel Poverty

- Public Services: Access and Quality

- Older People: An Asset, but not AssertiveEnough

- Government Policy: What SVP should call onGovernment to do

- Informing the Work and Services of SVP

- How the Consultation was Carried Out

Experiences and Feelings about Aging

- When younger, older people had given very little thought

to what it might be like when older. It was not something

that they had prepared for. They began to notice that they

were getting older gradually as they developed ailments,

stiffness or more recurrent health problems.

- Important points of transition to old age were the loss of a

partner and this research met many women who had been

widowed, sometimes not long after their husband left the

workforce. Many women faced old age on their own. Other

points of transition were retirement from the workforce and

the universally positive experience of becoming a grand-

parent.

- Older peoples attitude to old age was generally verypositive - a time to be enjoyed, take holidays, be active and

fit. The message of the active, fit old age has been firmly

embraced. Older people consider themselves much more

fortunate than their parents or their childrens generation.

Their parents lived lives of great hardship, with little money,

much physical toil and few labour-saving devices. At the

other extreme, they had great apprehension for the future

of their children and grand-children because of the

economic collapse. They regarded themselves as fortunate

The SVP Older Peoples Commission:

Executive Summary

The Older Peoples Commission of the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) was established to learn

of the experience of being an older person in Ireland today and to draw out the implications bothfor Government policy and the work of the SVP itself. It was funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies

under their Aging Funding Strand in 2010. The Commission, comprising sixteen older people, mostly

SVP members and some SVP staff and an independent chairperson (Andy Cullen), worked from June

2010 to March 2011. The Commission oversaw the work of two researchers (Brian Harvey and Kathy

Walsh) who carried out a programme of consultations across the island of Ireland, meeting with

members of SVP in their Conferences (local branches), users of SVP services, managers and staff and

volunteer helpers. The work of the Commission and the consultation process was evaluated

externally by Niall Watters.

Society of St Vincent de Paul

A group of SVP members being consulted in Waterford - Photo: Joe Dalton, Media Officer, South-East Region

1 For the purposes of the study, older people are defined as over 60, but the study also took account of the over 50s and older elderly.


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and Ireland as a good place in which to grow old.

- Older people had mixed views of the younger generation,

some finding that they showed little respect for older

people, others telling of their kindness and courtesy. They

felt that young people had high material expectations, were

more aggressive (which they attributed to drugs and

alcohol), applauded their positive, helping attitudes to

people with disabilities and hoped that they would be more

assertive than their generation had been.

Social Connection

- Patterns of family cohesion had persisted. Although there

were exceptions, older people had frequent contact with

their children and grand-children, who kept in regular

contact through telephone and visits. There was no

evidence of younger people abandoning and forgetting the

older generation. Although crime had grown in recent

years, with a need to lock the front door, older people

spoke of the enduring quality of neighbourliness in the

communities in which they lived. Faith was an important

personal and social element for many, while at the same

time a number of older people expressed disappointment

about the scandals in the church and also sadness aboutnot being able to pass on their faith to their children.

- Loneliness was the biggest individual problem faced by

older people living alone. Although SVP made its own

contribution to combating loneliness, for example by

visiting and the system of personal alarms, it was a much

wider issue. Older people noted a reduced level of human

contact as a result of declining public services (e.g. post

offices, buses and trains) and automation, especially

disliking robotic telephone answering systems. To keep in

touch, many older people now used mobile phone, mainlyfor calls and a smaller proportion for texting. Few used

personal computers or the internet.

Income Adequacy and Fuel Poverty

- Income support was a key question for older people, but

one where the answer was complex and subtle. Those who

received the State pension were just able to manage, but

they had long learned to be disciplined in money

management. The State pension did not permit saving for

a rainy day, emergencies, breakdown of appliances orrepairs and this was itself a form of poverty. The Christmas

bonus had been used by older people for this purpose and

its abolition was still bitterly resented.

- The issue of income support had many important

dimensions. Older people under the pension age but who

had been self-employed had no form of income support.

The research came across cases of people turned down for

work in their fifties because they were too old to work. In

reality, employers preferred younger workers who were

easier to control. Older people reported a range of stealth

charges that were eating into their incomes: eye tests,

blood tests, dental charges, waste charges, the new

electricity charge and the prescription charge (many older

people had multiple prescriptions).

- There was a strong sense of unfairness in government

decisions about older people, which they contrasted withthe extravagant lifestyles of ministers, the political class and

the bankers.

- The greatest point of pressure on older people was fuel

and heat. Fuel poverty persisted. Although housing,

insulation and heating systems had now improved, many

older people still had inefficient or expensive heating

systems and had to resort to extreme siege of Leningrad

type solutions to keep warm.

Public Services: Access and Quality

- Transport services were a significant problem, with many

parts of rural Ireland having extremely limited services. Poor

public transport was identified, surprisingly, as a significant

problem in built up urban areas as well.

- Older people regarded health services as good - once they

got them. The consultations heard many reports of long

waiting periods on trolleys (up to three days), long waits for

outpatients and accident and emergency (4hr to a day) and

prolonged delays to see specialists (up to three years).Experiences of poor hospital care were reported, with a

decline in nursing, the lack of stimulation of long-stay

patients or people with dementia. There was strong

resentment at the way in which people with money could

skip the queue through private health insurance. Older

people saw these problems as systemic and were puzzled

at how the health services are now so badly and

incompetently managed.

- A particular problem that was highlighted was the lack of

transport services to hospitals. In rural Ireland, where

hospitals or health services were closed, ambulance or

transport services were not provided in their place.

Society of St Vincent de PaulThe SVP Older Peoples Commission:

Executive Summary


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The research heard numerous examples of older people

obliged to make long, difficult and sometimes stressful

journeys to hospitals at great personal expense and time so

as to keep appointments. Many of the services most valued

by older people, like bus transport to hospital and home

help services are relatively low-cost and low-tech, and

should not be as scarce as they are. In the latter case, home

help services have been sharply cut back and are now

limited to two sessions a week of less than an hour, reaching

the point where their value becomes questionable.

Older People: An Asset, but not Assertive

Enough- Older People are an asset to Ireland, making positive

economic and social contributions. They are very significant

consumers of services and products and have considerable

buying power as well as being generous givers to charitable

causes. Older people perform key family functions by

meeting costs facing family members, caring, and providing

accommodation for family members when their

circumstances change. Similarly, among the wider

community, older people provide care for frailer older

people, looking out for neighbours, and carrying out rolessuch as house or baby sitting. Older people are more likely

to vote and are well placed to lobby, as evidenced by recent

medical card eligibility changes. In effect, older people act

as a critical Social Glue in communities, in leadership roles

and active membership of community and voluntary

groups. Specific skills and experience of older people

include crafts, technical & managerial skills from their

careers such as negotiation, organisational and money

management, and their lifetime experience, helpful for

personal advice and wisdom in events such as relationship

breakdown.

- Older people do not regard themselves as self-assertive,

contrasting themselves with Britain, France and theyounger generation. They regret that they are not more

assertive and explain their docility as inherited from their

parents generation. An important finding was that older

people could find no place or person where they could

make complaints about poor public services: the system

was incapable of handling, receiving or responding to

complaints.


Executive Summary

(Left to right) Kathleen Dalton and Elizabeth Slevin, St Carthages Hospital Visitation Waterford, Brian Harvey (independentresearcher), Helen Crowley, St Luke's Visitation Tramore, Terry Dolan and Marie Kimber, St Bridget's Shop, Waterford.- Photo: Joe Dalton, Media Officer, South-East Region


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Government Policy: What SVP should call onGovernment to do

Older people were of the view that SVP must be muchmore outspoken in its advocacy work for older people,

focusing on defending and improving income supports for

older people and related issues such as resistance to stealth

charges and specific issues arising from this study, such as:

- Confronting the persistence of fuel poverty through

effective policies;

- An effective, fair, accessible, universal health service and

Fair Deal;

- Investment in low-tech, high-value, low cost services that

make a difference for older people, such as:

home help and

better transport services to and from hospital

and other health appointments;

- More effective pension system, especially for those living

alone (people cited the removal of the Christmas Bonus);

- tackling homelessness and challenging local authorities

who refuse to house homeless people and health services

who discharge sick people onto the streets;

- Government support for individual and community

initiatives to combat loneliness and isolation; and

- An effective complaints system in the public services,rebalancing complaints systems decisively in favour of the

citizen.

Informing the Work and Services of SVP

The research identified many important features of SVP

work itself. The first was that its services were highly valued

and affirmed by those who received them - the visiting

services which brought comfort and friendship; the day

centres which offered food, companionship and a broad

range of social activities; the holidays, widely praised as the

high point in the year for those who came to them; and the

social housing projects which enabled older people live the

rest of their lives with comfort, dignity and independence.

There was still room for improvement: to involve tenants in

the co-management of services, promoting awareness of

the complaints system and the end of the harsh no pets

rule in some locations.

Recommendations were made as to how SVP can better

manage its Conferences, involve and retain new and

younger members and improve the style and format of

meetings. SVP should establish a database of its services,

publish a services directory and develop its systems for

research, evaluation, reflection and the promotion of goodpractice, sharing outcomes with other voluntary

organizations. Inter-generational projects, already

successful, offered considerable promise. A key mindset

message is that older people are an asset to Irish society

and should never be considered a burden.

How the Consultation was Carried Out

Meetings took the form of formal focus groups, one-to-one

discussions, expert interviews and informal group

discussion, using a common template of questions. A totalof 567 older people participated in over 43 locations and a

cross-section was achieved across the country between the

regions: urban, provincial and rural areas; and across

socioeconomic groups. Overall, the gender balance was

more female than male, reflecting the nature of the older

population, but in other groups (e.g. users of homeless

services) men were more represented. SVP services

included visitation and befriending, day centres, social

housing, holiday centres and projects for homeless people.


Executive Summary

1109SJ

Society of St Vincent de Paul

National Office

SVP House

91 - 92 Sean MacDermott Street

Dublin 1

Telephone: 353 1 838 6990

Facsimile: 353 1 838 7355

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.svp.ie

This Executive Summary has been produced by the SVP Social Justice and Policy Team, based on theReport of the SVP Older Peoples Commission, authored by Brian Harvey and Kathy Walsh(independent researchers). The Full Report is now available on www.svp.ie. September 2011.

svp - report of the commission - older people executive summary

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